We Finally Know How Game of Thrones Season 8 Begins

This post contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season 8.

After more than a year of suspense following the Night King’s destruction of the Wall in Game of Thrones‘ season 7 finale, fans are finally getting an idea of how season 8 will begin.

A cover story published Thursday by Entertainment Weekly reveals that season 8 will not open with an update on the Army of the Dead’s progress, but rather with the convergence of some of Game of Thrones‘ biggest stars at Winterfell. To recap, at the end of season 7, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister and several other of Westeros’ key players were headed North to Winterfell, where Samwell Tarly and the three remaining Stark siblings—Sansa, Arya and Bran—were awaiting their arrival.

“Season 8 opens at Winterfell with an episode that contains plenty of callbacks to the show’s pilot,” EW reports. “Instead of King Robert’s procession arriving, it’s Daenerys and her army. What follows is a thrilling and tense intermingling of characters—some of whom have never previously met, many who have messy histories—as they all prepare to face the inevitable invasion of the Army of the Dead.”

As we know, Jon left Winterfell as King in the North but later swore allegiance to Daenerys—a development that Sansa, for one, will apparently not be happy about, according to the story. From there, it sounds as though season 8 will explore how the relationships between these characters develop as they prepare to face the Night King and his army.

“It’s about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death,” co-executive producer Bryan Cogman told EW. “It’s an incredibly emotional, haunting, bittersweet final season, and I think it honors very much what [author George R.R. Martin] set out to do — which is flipping this kind of story on its head.”

Game of Thrones season 8 is set to air in 2019.

Another day, another step closer to the highly-anticipated finale of Game of Thrones which, for fans of the show, will be a strange mix of excitement and emotion.

It’s been over a year since the end of season seven, which saw the Night King’s army quickly growing and advancing as it descended on The Wall. Season seven’s conclusion also saw Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen team up in more ways than one, as they travelled north together, towards Winterfell.

They weren’t the only ones heading north though, as Tyrion Lannister and a number of other key characters were en route, ready to reunite with Samwell Tarly and the three remaining Stark siblings – Sansa, Arya and Bran.


As is usually the way with GoT, if we’re not in the middle of battle, we’re on the verge of one. However, it seems season eight won’t be throwing us back into the middle of things with the Army of the Dead.

Instead, the first episode is likely to mirror season one’s first episode, as many key characters arrive in Winterfell, some of whom have never met before.

This time, it’s Daenerys and her army arriving in the north, as she and her entourage congregate with the Starks and others, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Bryan Cogman, GoT‘s co-executive producer, said:

It’s about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death.

It’s an incredibly emotional, haunting, bittersweet final season, and I think it honors very much what George set out to do — which is flipping this kind of story on its head.

It was also suggested the drama of the final season will build to the epic confrontation with the Army of the Dead, which is expected to be ‘the most sustained action sequence ever made for television or film’.


In April this year, a crew member revealed they’d undergone 55 night shoots just to film one battle, and not even the full battle that’ll take place.

The night shoots were only filming the outdoor scenes. After the crew had wrapped outdoors, they moved into a studio to continue filming the battle for a few more weeks.

In comparison, season six’s epic climax, titled The Battle of the B*stards, took 25 days to shoot.

Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister, said:

It’s brutal. It makes the Battle of the B*stards look like a theme park.

Showrunner David Benioff said:

Having the largest battle doesn’t sound very exciting — it actually sounds pretty boring. Part of our challenge, and really, Miguel’s [Sapochnik, director] challenge, is how to keep that compelling… we’ve been building toward this since the very beginning, it’s the living against the dead, and you can’t do that in a 12-minute sequence.

This is going to be huge!